[Ti] Dual Layer cable for Powerbook G4 400

[Chris Olson]

On Dec 14, 2005, at 12:34 AM, themacuser wrote:

> Yeah, but Apple sells the SuperDrive and iDVD as one product in new  
> Macs, so they can pay per drive I'd say. LaCie don't have a  
> software MPEG-2 maker.

Exactly.  So LaCie doesn't need a license to sell a DVD burner.   
Neither does Apple.  However, Apple needs an MPEG-2 license to  
distribute iDVD which has the encoder in it.  Apple selling iDVD and  
the SuperDrive as one product is the lock-in I so despise.  It's  
perfectly legal to use iDVD with another drive.  Apple purposely  
crippled it so it won't work to force people to buy their drives.

Where this screws Apple customers over is where a person has a first  
generation PowerBook with no burner.  You buy a Firewire burner and  
now it don't work with iDVD.  This is utterly ridiculous because you  
can burn to an MPEG-2 image file with iDVD and save it on your hard  
disk.  Then transfer the MPEG-2 image to a PC running linux and burn  
it to a DVD.  Or you can burn it to a DVD with Disk Utility on a Mac.

So if Apple wants market share, then quit being so stingy.  For  
cripes sake, a hacker wrote a 165 kb patch in his spare time that  
enables iDVD to work with external burners, so it's not like Apple  
can't do it.  Further, crippling iDVD so it doesn't "just work" when  
Lisbeth plugs in her Firewire drive doesn't exactly add to the much  
ballyhoo'd Apple user experience either.  It's more like the Apple  
user experience is that you have to fight to get anything to work on  
a Mac because Apple purposely cripples it.
-- 
Chris

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